Alfonso Cuarón

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco (born November 28, 1961 in Mexico City) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter and producer. He is the son of Alfredo Cuarón, a well known Cardiologist who worked for the United Nations’ IAEA sector for many years. He has four siblings and two half sisters: Alfredo, Carlos, Cristina, Christina and Elisa.

Cuarón studied filmmaking and philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. After graduating, he began working in television in Mexico, first as a technician and then as a director. Cuarón’s television work led to assignments as an assistant director for several Latin American film productions (including Gaby: A True Story and Romero), and in 1991, he landed his first big-screen directorial assignment.

Sólo con tu pareja was a dark comedy about a womanizing businessman who learns he’s contracted AIDS; the film was a massive hit in Mexico, and was enthusiastically received around the world. Director Sydney Pollack was impressed enough with Sólo con tu pareja that he hired Cuaron to direct an episode of Fallen Angels, a series of neo-noir stories produced for the Showtime premium cable network in 1993; other directors who worked on the series included Steven Soderbergh, Jonathan Kaplan, Peter Bogdanovich, and Tom Hanks.

In 1995, Cuarón released his first feature film produced in the United States, A Little Princess, an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic novel. Cuarón’s next feature was also a literary adaptation, a modernized version of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Robert De Niro.

Cuarón’s next project found him returning to Mexico with a Spanish-speaking cast to film Y tu mamá también, a provocative, and controversial road comedy about two sexually obsessed teenagers who take an extended road trip with an attractive woman in her thirties. The film’s open portrayal of sexuality and frequent rude humor, as well as the politically and socially relevant asides, made the film an international hit and a major success with critics. Cuarón shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay with co-writer Carlos Cuarón.

In 2003, Cuarón directed the third film in the successful Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuarón faced criticism amongst the more puritanical Potter fans for his approach to the film. Given that the first two installments, helmed by Chris Columbus, had adhered stringently to the books, Cuarón’s rather more individualistic film (with a darker tone, costume changes, omitted subplots and other changes to the accepted continuity) came as something of a shock to many fans. However, author J.K. Rowling has said that this movie is so far her personal favorite from the series. Many fans also agree that this movie is the best Harry Potter film so far.

Cuarón’s newest feature is Children of Men—an adaptation of the P.D. James novel.

He created the production and distribution company Esperanto Filmoj (Esperanto films), which has credits on the films Duck Season and Pan’s Labyrinth.